A recently disclosed email sent to Jeffrey Epstein has ignited fresh controversy around Donald Trump, after journalist and author Michael Wolff alleged that the former president privately boasted about sleeping with his former aide at the White House. The claim surfaced in a 2019 draft section of a book Wolff shared with Epstein via email, which forms part of a vast collection of more than 23,000 documents handed to US Congress by the late financier’s estate. The email names then-28-year-old aide Madeleine Westerhout.

Last night, Ms Westerhout rejected the allegation and told the Mirror that these claims were “absurd” and “unhinged from reality.” Ms Westerhout’s lawyer said on her behalf: “These are absurd and defamatory accusations from a discredited writer who has been known to peddle falsehoods. The lies in this email are unhinged from reality and simply not true.”

In the draft, the writer states how Trump decided to remain in Washington for Christmas in 2018 during the federal shutdown, rather than join his family at Mar-a-Lago.

First Lady Melania Trump went to Florida but then came back briefly to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Washington DC, the Mirror reported.

In the original draft, which Wolff later edited to hide who the aide was in the final version of Siege, which came out in 2019, he wrote: “In an empty White House, Trump’s personal secretary, 28-year-old Madeleine Westerhout, brought his papers and call sheets from the West Wing up to the residence, finding him, she told friends, in his underwear.”

The draft also referenced former chief strategist Steve Bannon allegedly noticing Trump’s “particular interest” in Westerhout, who “kept repeating, “She’s got a way about her,” his signature, and creepy, stamp of approval for young women.”

He added: “Now the president was telling friends that he wasn’t staying at the White House because of the shutdown – he was staying because he was “banging” Madeleine. Shutdown bravado? Locker room talk? Or all part of a new alternative reality that only he seemed to be living in?.”

Madeleine Westerhout served as Director of Oval Office Operations in 2019 and, before that, spent two years as Personal Secretary to the President.

She joined Trump’s team during the presidential transition and was appointed executive assistant and special assistant to the President on his first day in office in January 2017.

In February 2019, she was promoted to Director of Oval Office Operations, a position that involved overseeing access to the President and managing sensitive White House workflow.

Westerhout’s time at the White House ended abruptly in August 2019. She was dismissed after it emerged she had shared private details about Trump’s family and inner workings of the West Wing during an off-the-record dinner with journalists.

She published a memoir in 2020 called Off the Record. The book makes no mention of any inappropriate relationship; instead, it portrays her time outside the Oval Office as the “most exciting” of her life.

She wrote in the book: “I must give a special thanks to President Trump. The more than two and a half years I spent sitting outside the Oval Office were the most exciting of my life. I wish everyone could get to know him the way I did. They would never doubt how much he loves this country.”